Terreur dans la vallée

Answering a call from Jay Kirby who has settled in a nearby area with a ranch and along with others is having his cattle systematically stolen with no trace, Hoppy and California come from the Bar 20 when summoned.

As part of his plan Hoppy and California go to work for Victor Jory whom we know right away as a villain. But Jory is only part of the picture.

Jory has got quite an operation going with a whole gang of cattle rustlers among them future screen legend Robert Mitchum. It all involved a spy among the ranchers and a played out old gold mine.

Best in this Hoppy feature is George Givot who normally is in lighter roles on the screen. He plays a miner long thought to be dead, but actually living as a hermit in his old mine and gone stark crazy with the loneliness and the dark.

Definitely one of the better Hopalong Cassidy films.

As rustled cattle have mysteriously disappeared, Johnny sends for his friend Hoppy, Hoppy arrives and immediately suspects Dan Slack. Realizing his telegram about Slack was intercepted, he locks up the operator Lafe knowing he can escape. Tailing Lafe he finds a secret entrance to a mine and inside finds the missing cattle. But Slack's men also find him just as the cattle are stampeded through the mine shaft.

Decent Hoppy western, though it meanders a little and is slightly lesser in quality to the ones I have seen, but it's got Victor Jory as the slimy villain, a role he could do in his sleep, some great rugged scenery and action; the cattle stampede in a mine is quite unusual. It's very hard not to like a Hoppy western.

In 1943, following eight months without a release, the William Boyd-starring Hopalong Cassidy Western series moves to United Artists, a company devoid of those productions required to satisfy contractual conditions. U.A. signs a pact with Paramount wherein over twenty films in the can and ready for theatre showings were transferred from the latter studio to United Artists, these including the Cassidy pictures, such as this one, LEATHER BURNERS, that failed to gain widespread audience approval, principally due to a scattershot screenplay that is bogged down with unsympathetic plotting twists. A well-worn Western genre theme subject: cattle rustling, becomes a keynote for this work that is nicely detailed during its first half, largely due to the able direction of veteran of silents Joseph E. Henabery, at the helm for his sole sound feature, shot at and near Lone Pine, California, (especially in the adjacent Alabama Hills region for the many outdoor action sequences), as well as in Hollywood's Bronson Cave. Hoppy's latest protégé is Johnny Travers, former ranch hand at Cassidy's Bar 20 spread, and it is Johnny, played by Jay Kirby, who calls for Cassidy and his saddle pard California Carlson (Andy Clyde) to aid him with the mentioned rustling predicament. Hopalong and California pretend to work for Dan Slack (Victor Jory) as a ploy intended to discover a mastermind behind the illegal goings-on, but there are too many plot line threads for even this dauntless pair to effectively tackle, and this surfeit, in addition to a skimpy budget, sinks the piece during its second half. Nevertheless, some interesting elements appear during the course of this essentially basic Western programmer: it marks the third appearance in a Hopalong Cassidy film for each of two young players beginning their careers, Robert Mitchum and George Reeves; it profits additionally from the final score composed for a feature motion picture by Samuel Kaylin. Jory handily garners acting laurels for his smooth performance as a leading representative of the Forces of Evil.

The baddies in this Hopalong Cassidy film are an unusual and distinguished group...including George Reeves, Robert Mitchum an Victor Jory. This is why I decided to score this otherwise unremarkable film a 6 instead of a 5.

When Hoppy and California (Andy Clyde) arrive in town, Hoppy sees a man seemingly saved through a remarkable bit of luck. But Hopalong is no dummy...and quickly realizes that Dan Slack (Jory) is a fraud. But why? Why would he do this? And, what does this fraud have to do with their friend, Johnny (Jay Kirby) and the missing cattle from his ranch? And, if cattle are being stolen, where have they disappeared to, as the canyon seemed to only have one exit...and it was blocked?

This is an okay Hopalong Cassidy film....not bad but also very familiar and with a cute kid...something I actually hate in old B-westerns as they are quite the cliche.

Hoppy's called in to help buddy Johnny stop rustlers from grabbing his herd which then mysteriously vanish. Then too, what the heck's with that weird abandoned gold mine near Johnny's ranch. Things do seem strange.

It's an unusual Hoppy that breaks ranks with traditional oaters. There's a ton of imagination in that creepy mine-shaft showdown, enough to make it and the flick itself memorable. And whoever came up with the weird character and scary looks of Bucktoe (Givot) deserves a Bela Lugosi Oscar. In fact, Bucktoe's wild face and angry demeanor is enough to keep me awake at night with a six-gun cap-pistol at my side. On top of this are a number of plot twists and turns that kept me guessing, marking a real departure from the usual oater as good as they might be.

Nonetheless, Hoppy and California (Clyde) are there to keep the format familiar, if not the various twists. There's plenty of hard-riding and fast-shooting but no flying-fists, and that's along with some great rocky scenery. Then too, catch Bob Mitchum in an early role as a henchman baddie - he even gets a few spoken lines. And guess who gets the one girl in the cast - they didn't call him Superman for nothing (Reeves).

Anyway, don't let this one slip by, especially if you like imaginative departures as variation on the familiar.